It is easy (usually) to be loved by your mother, just for being you. Writers (usually) want to be loved by others for the things they write. This isn’t easy, especially when the others know good writing when they see it.

Every once in a great while, a novel comes along to remind you why… you read.

…[A]s you slip into the book’s pages, you sense you are entering a singular creation, a richly populated world. Curiosity overcomes you. Before long, you are surrendering to the voice of a confident narrator, the arc of an unfamiliar story. And then, suddenly, you are swept away in a tale that is bristling with incident, steeped in the human condition, buffeted by winds of fate.

Phew! Who can resist a write-up like that? I’d rush on over to amazon right now, if I didn’t have a bit of writing to do myself. And then at night dream about getting a review like this…